Customs Agents Search SFO Plane For Wanted Immigration Fugitive

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) – A Delta flight from San Francisco to New York City was greeted at the arrival gate at John F. Kennedy International Airport by customs agents who required each passenger to show their identification documents as they deplaned.

The flight was Delta flight 1583 from San Francisco to New York and U.S. Customs and Border Protection said it was searching for an unidentified individual.

“U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) at John F. Kennedy Airport was contacted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) yesterday, February 22, 2017, to assist in locating an individual possibly aboard Delta flight 1583 from San Francisco International Airport to JFK,” the agency said in a statement released to KPIX 5. “This individual was ordered removed by an immigration judge. To assist our law enforcement partners, two CBP officers requested identification from those on the flight in order to help identify the individual. The individual was determined not to be on the flight.”

Vice news video editor Anne Garrett was on the flight and tweeted out a photo of the deplaning ID check.

Manhattan resident Matt O’Rouke was on the flight and described the experience to Gothamist.

“When we were getting out there were two customs agents,” he told the news blog. “I don’t think they had a clipboard or a list. I think they were just looking at everybody’s ID. They did it really carefully. You could tell they weren’t just looking for a name. They read my entire ID and looked at me the entire time.”

O’Rouke told Gothamist he was a frequent flier and had never seen an ID check at the arrival doors before.

“I flew almost 200,000 miles last year,” he told the news blog. “I’ve never had my ID checked getting off a domestic flight.”